


Weakness

by nice_girls_play



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-31
Updated: 2011-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-19 23:23:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nice_girls_play/pseuds/nice_girls_play
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Still life in a married couple's bathroom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weakness

There are ten thousand little bottles lined up on the bathroom counter. Brown glass, green glass, blue and red, tall and short, with long, smooth planes and fat curves, all labeled with a fine, spidery copperplate on ancient parchment sealed in wax.

Some are fairly innocuous -- mouth wash, shaving lotion, contact lens solution, pomade (which never fails to pull a snort from Sirius and a glare from Severus).

Others are less so. Tools for the self-medicating both of them are prone to sit cheek and jowl with potions for ailments of men twice their combined ages: ice-heat for Sirius's bad knees and Severus's shoulder, mint for migraines, liniment for scar tissue, detox potions, ginseng-mint for their thoroughly taxed immune systems. St. John's Wort in powdered form, cocaine in liquid form, morphine, saline, anti-venom for the poison that still occasionally flares in Severus's system and knocks him to the floor, tons and tons of Dreamless Sleep (they both have their share of nightmares).

By far, the three most important bottles are in the top drawer of the night table. Two of them are the same thing – one in a glass bottle with the same handwritten label that smells like aloe vera, the other in a smaller, plastic, container with modern Muggle linotype that smells like silicon and doesn't stay warm or tacky nearly long enough to suit some people.

“I'm sorry, Snape. I didn't have a potions master to make the stuff when I was on the run.”

“*How old* is this..?!”

The third is also of Muggle origin, larger than the others, and tucked secretively behind a tall stack of technical journals. Still, Padfoot can hear the sloshing liquid under any hurried rifling and can smell the honey, sassafras and vanilla extract through the birch wood, glass and newsprint.

Marriage has forced Severus Snape to let more than a few weaknesses show. But his taste for organic root beer is a secret Sirius is more than happy to let him keep.


End file.
